Excuse=Failure

Today was another wonderful Sunday in a month that's shaping up to be a good one for reasons that has nothing to do with worthwhile-ness of my industrial training; I've given up on that a while ago.

You know, one of my favorite characters in this church is the pastor in charge of the parish, he's really something else. He's clearly one of those pastors who were literally taken off the streets by the kind works of someone's evangelism. He's got his own way of doing things, that's actually quite unique and a blend of the street, the old way of Christianity and the modern day Christian ways. I absolutely love it, because it uses both faith, realism and logic mixed together to approach the gospel. So today, he preached on the topic, The Light. That's not what got me though. It was something he said almost as a side note that got me. He said 'when someone gives me an excuse, I pity them, because it tells me they are failures'.

I kept thinking about it and almost as if God wanted to give me clarity, I came upon an article on BBC talking about some recent happenings in South Africa. One of the things south Africans are most notorious for, is their quickness to xenophobic attacks. I ding think there's another nation on this planet that's quite as openly and dangerously xenophobic as South Africa. Between 2008 and 2018, there was at least four large scale xenophobic attacks on foreign national living and doing business in South Africa. This of course doesn't include the small scale xenophobic attacks which I'm sure, are promptly covered up by the government, for fear of diplomatic squabbles.

In a manner of speaking, they are preparing another round of violent attacks on foreign nationals, most of whom will other African nationals. Two groups have recently gained a little attention as a result of their forward and bold actions, geared at achieving the forced exit of all foreign nationals from South Africa. Interesting it all started as a struggle for a particular region. Due to the high rate of unemployment and the poor financial status of majority of the people in the region, they got frustrated, claiming that foreign nationals are the ones getting all the jobs, government subsidized housing, as well as business opportunities available in the area. They even had the effrontery to evict legal occupants of stores and market stalls from them and reallocated them to their own members.

I couldn't help but wonder if South Africa was a lawless state. A state has to be quite lawless for a civilian to forcefully evict another civilian from his/her legally acquired property/asset and nothing will be done about it. The fact that these people are organizing should put the South African government on alert, as this has the potential to escalate into a full blown violent situation. My focus though, is on what seem to be their excuse for their situation.

How can you claim that foreign nationals are taking jobs and business opportunities away from you? I don't get it. These jobs and bus opportunities have always been there, but you didn't see it, because you were either not interested, not looking or not qualified for it. How's that anyone's fault? It's a free labour market. If you can't compete favourably, that's your fault. Go and upgrade yourself, instead of hating on innocent people. A need has always been there to satisfy, but you didn't satisfy it, but it's me stealing your business opportunities when I do? Just because I'm a foreigner? What sort of rubbish is that?

Imagine all of these silly excuses these people are giving for the kind of life they've earned for themselves. This is gross failure on their part to improve their lives, but instead of admitting the truth, taking responsibility for what they have now, so they can start on the journey of improving it, they would rather give flimsy and stupid excuses for their situation, trying to shift the blame to others, who know nothing of it.

Conclusion

Now I get it when my pastor said excuses equal failure. This situation in South Africa has clarified it for me. Interestingly, even the best of us fall victim to this excuse thing sometimes. It's really important we learn to take responsibilities for our actions and failures as that's the first step towards working to fix it.

Thanks for reading me always..